Matt Berninger needs time to warm up. Dressed in suit and tie, the bearded-and-bespectacled National frontman looks like a socially awkward university lecturer as he nervously paces to-and-fro. The gulps of red wine from a plastic cup only reinforce the impression.

But by the encore he’s been swallowed up by the crowd, raging “Mr November, I won’t fuck us over” somewhere amongst the first few rows, without a thought for the roadie desperately wrangling the microphone cord.